artist archives

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Kristin Hawley Good. Artists Archives: Institutional Contexts, Problems, and Solutions.

A Master's paper for the M.S. in L.S. degree. April, 2012. 93 pages. Advisor: Heather

Gendron

Little has been written concerning the unique challenges that artists archives pose tocollecting institutions. The varied content and physical formats found in these collections

resist easy classification and defy the traditional institutional boundaries of both archives

and art museums. This study investigates issues and current professional practices

regarding the collection and management of artists archives by art museums and archival

institutions. It presents the results of interviews conducted withprofessionals from the

Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill;the Sallie

Bingham Center for Womens History and Culture at Duke University; and the Getty

Research Institute Special Collections. Interview results are presented individually and

then discussed according to issues of acquisition, classification, processing, exhibition,

and storage and preservation of artists archives. Professional values regarding theinstitutional contexts and research potential of artworks, artifacts, and visual records are

also discussed.

Headings:

Art archivesMuseums

Realia


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ARTISTS ARCHIVES: INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS, PROBLEMS, ANDSOLUTIONS

by

Kristin Hawley Good

A Master's paper submitted to the faculty

of the School of Information and Library Science

of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Master of Science in

Library Science.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

April 2012

Approved by

_________________________________________

Heather Gendron


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

...........................................................................................................INTRODUCTION 3

.................................................................................................LITERATURE REVIEW 5

........................................................................................What are Artists Archives? 5

...........................................................Blurring the Boundary: Art or Archive? 7

..................................................................Institutional Contexts of Artists Archives 15

...........................................................................Archival Materials in Art Museums 19

......................................................................................Art and Artifacts in Archives 22

.................................................................................Art and Artifacts as Documents 27

...............................................................Toward a More Integrated Cultural Record 30

...........................................................................................................METHODOLOGY 33

..................................................................................................INTERVIEW RESULTS 35

..................................................................................................Ackland Art Museum 36

............................................................................................Institutional Context 36

...............................................................General Practice with Artists Archives 37

................................................................Cooperation with University Libraries 41

.....................................................................................Ephemera in the Museum 42

.............................................................................................Artwork As Archive 44

.................................................................................................Study Collections 45

......................................................................................................Overall Values 46

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..........................................Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture 47


............................................................................Installation Art in the Archives 49

.............................................................................Processing Artists Collections 50

.............................................................................................................Exhibition 52

..................................................................................................................Storage 53

.....................................................................Selection Issues / Collection Policy 53

......................................................................................................Overall Values 56

.............................................................Getty Research Institute Special Collections 57


...............................Collection Policy and Relationship with the Getty Museum 58

.............................................................................................................Processing 60

.............................................................................................................Exhibition 66

..................................................................................................................Storage 67

......................................................................................................Overall Values 67

..................................................................................................................DISCUSSION 69

.................................................................................................................Acquisition 70

.............................................................................................................Classification 73

..................................................................................................................Processing 75

...........................................................................................Storage and Preservation 78

....................................................................................................Professional Values 79

................................................................................................................CONCLUSION 81

.............................................................................................................................NOTES 84

..............................................................................................................WORKS CITED 87

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INTRODUCTION

Artists archives, which may be loosely defined as the materials generated by the

personal, professional, and creative activity of visual artists, serve as the primary

documents of artists lives, careers, and art-making practices and processes, and are vital

resources for research in the visual arts. During an artists lifetime, his or her archives

may be actively managed initially by the artist herself or a studio manager or archivist

hired to select, organize, and preserve material of value. Later, these archives are often

donated to or purchased by collecting institutions dedicated to preserving art-related or

more general historical records. These may include national repositories such as the well-

known Archives of American Art, university archives and special collections libraries,

collecting archives1 within art museums, or even art museums themselves.

The complexities of artistic practices and processes, however, produce

documentation that often blurs the boundary between art and archive, challenging

traditional institutional definitions and resisting easy classification. Furthermore, the

varied physical formats and content found in artists archives have the potential to present

significant storage, preservation, and cataloging/descriptiondifficulties to institutions that

house them. While art museums are certainly accustomed to dealing with objects, they

are not typically accustomed to managing large numbers of non-art objects or archival

materials as part of their artifact collections. Conversely, archives that collect artists

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papers often receive artwork, artifacts, or other types of visual records in addition to the

more traditional archival record types (e.g. correspondence, journals, photographs, etc.)

as part of a complete collection. These examples often take the form of drawings, prints,

sketchbooks, mail art, or illustrated letters, but they may include models, sculptures,

installation components, performance documentation, and three-dimensional objects and

ephemera that the artists collected for inspiration or for use as source material. As a

result, museum and archives professionals responsible for collections of both art and

archival materials are faced with challenges of how to best process, store, provide access

to, and sometimes exhibit and interpret these complex collections.

While there is limited literature discussing the collection of artifacts by libraries

and archives (Bierbaum; Cooke; Jeffrey; Meraz; Severn), there appears to be almost no

literature discussing the alternate scenario: archives in museum (artifact) collections.

Furthermore, there is little if any literature directly addressing the unique challenges that

artists archives pose to collecting institutions. Through interviews with archivists and

museum professionals involved in the selection, description, storage, provision of access

to, and exhibition of artists archives, this paper aims to shed light on current professional

practices with these complex collections and the issues surrounding their management,

value, and potential across institutional contexts.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

What are Artists Archives?

Only a small body of literature exists related to artists archives. These records,

ranging from manuscripts, correspondence, and photographs, to sketchbooks, drawings,

prints, plans, models, collected artifacts and ephemera, and documentation of

performance and installation art, are the primary source materials that are vital to research

in the visual arts. They form the basis of dissertations, exhibitions, catalogs, articles, and

books, and even inspire the work of future artists. Without their active collection and

preservation, a significant portion of the history of art might be lost. As Sue Breakell and

Victoria Worsley have argued, there is no doubt that much insight into the artists

creative process can be gleaned from the complete body of documentation of their life

and work (179). A letter to a friend might reference a work, or a diary entry or piece of

ephemera might document an activity or event that influenced the artist. Direct

byproducts of the creative process, such as sketchbooks, preparatory drawings, models,

notes, and materials samples, provide invaluable insight into the development of

individual works. Furthermore, documentation through photographs, text, artists

statements, and even artifacts becomes critical for understanding and preserving

ephemeral works such as performance, installation, or environmental art (Tong 26).

Breakell and Worsley have also demonstrated the important function of documentation in

the creative process itself, describing two artists, Prunella Clough and Helen Chadwick,

whose research activities generate an archive that serves to simultaneously document and

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inform their process (180-88). Together, the documentation in archives enriches and

deepens our understanding of artistic practice (Breakell and Worsley 188).

These unique and valuable materials haveperhaps only becomemore numerous,

diverse, and challenging to collect, preserve, and make accessible in recent decades,as

postmodern art forms have become increasingly dematerialized and ephemeral, and as

technology has rapidly evolved. Citing the wealth of primary documentation that has

been produced and collected by artists and artist-run organizations since the emergence of

the alternative art space and the proliferation of artist publishing in the 1970s, Darlene

Tong argues that repositories face some of the same issues in dealing with any archival

collection, but in preserving the archives of the avant-garde, the array of types of works

and forms of documentation may be even more diverse, eclectic, ephemeral, and

fragile (25). Tongs description of the archives of the San-Francisco based artist-run

organizationLa Mamelle, active from 1975-1995, gives further insight into the diversity

of materials that may be found in artists archives. In addition to the organizational

records, the archives ofLa Mamelle include: research materials, manuscripts, and images

used to produce the organizations magazine; a research library; a collection of artists

books; artists files, including correspondence, publicity materials, articles and

manuscripts, bibliographies, photographs, artists postcards, and mail art; periodicals and

zines by artists with related correspondence and ephemera; ephemera from art

conferences and festivals; and various artworks, mainly artifacts from performance works

or video productions, as well as electronic artwork and documentation (Tong 23-24).

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Blurring the Boundary: Art or Archive?

Especially since the emergence of alternative art practices in the 1960s,

documentation has not only become increasingly necessary to preserve and study works

of art, but the boundary between art and archive has become increasingly difficult to

define. As Rebecca Fortnumn and Chris Smith have articulated in The Problem of

Documenting Fine Art Practices and Processes:

Since the 1960s, when the artist began to engage creatively with the

documentation of their own (often performative and dematerialized)

practices, the relationship between process and documentation has become

even more complex. . . . Indeed, the exchange between documentation,process, and finished artwork has become blurred. (168)

Although this is one of the most fascinating aspects of artists archives, it is also the most

challenging for collecting institutions, as these materials resist easy classification and

challenge traditional institutional definitions.

Documentation and material evidence of performance, installation, or site-specific

art that is ephemeral in nature is one area in which the blurring of the boundary between

art and archive is particularly prominent, thus presenting unique challenges to

keepers of artists archives. In the case of performance and other ephemeral artwork, a

savable original does not exist, and thus, the work effectively remains solely in its

documentation. As a result, the evidence and the artwork are closely intertwined, at times

becoming nearly one in the same. Sometimes artifacts of an ephemeral artwork become

art objects themselves or an image becomes an iconic stand-in for a performance

(Manzella and Watkins 29). These works beg the philosophical question of whether it is

even possible to archive something fleeting and immaterial and/or essentially interactive.

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From a preservation standpoint, as Christina Manzella and Alex Watkins suggest,

performance art contains a kind of metaphorical inherent vice: its degradation from its

original form is guaranteed (30). Despite these challenges, however, an archive is,

essentially, evidence of things past, of what has disappeared. Therefore, if performance

art can be documented, then it can be archived (Manzella and Watkins 30). Although the

physical traces will always be inadequate in the sense that they are by definition not the

original, this does not negate their value as surrogates. When the artwork itself is

impermanent, the material evidence and documentation may be the only way that many

people, including scholars who did not witness the original artwork/event, are able to

experience it (Manzella and Watkins 28).

Performance and other ephemeral art creates several different types of evidence,

which may be comprised of a variety of media formats. The ephemeral artwork will

typically be documented with photographs, video, or audio recordings (which often

become stand-ins for the art/event itself), as well as, occasionally, eyewitness accounts.

A variety of ephemera (e.g. announcements, press releases, reviews, photographs, and

correspondence), will likely also result from the work. In addition to these fairly standard

archival formats, the work itself often uses and/or produces a number of artifacts. The

props and products used and produced in a performance or the physical materials used in

a temporary installation or site-specific work may form part of the archive, in addition to

preparatory drawings, written instructions, permits, or other evidence of the artistic and

logistical planning process (Manzella and Watkins 28). Although their varied physical

formats may be challenging for collecting institutions, Manzella and Watkins argue that

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the artifacts of performance art are important to the creation of complete records,

helping users to imagine the work and providing a physical link to the absent past

experience (29).

Preserving the documentation and material evidence also allows the works to be

re-performed and appropriated by artists. A key recent example is the work of Marina

Abromovi, whose 2005 performance series Seven Easy Pieces, performed at the

Guggenheim Museum in New York, recreated five other artists performances from the

1960s and 70s, as well as one of her own works, and included one new work by the artist.

Not having seen these pieces performed, Abromovi recreated them based on their

documents (Santone 148).2Jessica Santone has interpreted Abromovis work as

performative documents of the past performances she cites, or, as acts of embodied

documentation, and considers the work to be both a mode of production of

contemporary art anda mode of critical interpretation (Santone 147). Such artist-

initiated, creative documentation further complicates the issue of archiving performance

art, but attests to the value of its documentation for the preservation and critical

interpretation of performance art as well as its artistic appropriation (Santone 147). Re-

performance proposes a dynamic, living document as a solution to the pasts

disappearance; it allows a re-experiencing of the work in a time-based, body-based,

ephemeral medium and makes available new experiences of memory (Santone 151).

Manzella and Watkins argue for the archive as a venue for re-performance, stating, if the

archive is willing to accept not just material remains but physical (re)embodiments of

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performances, then performance art will not only allow itself to be archived, but will

expand the scope of the field (31).

For certain ephemeral works, the process is as much the artwork as its temporary

display. Here, documentation does not merely record the ephemeral artwork for posterity,

but forms a critical component of the artwork itself, revealing stages of its execution

(parts of the whole) that might otherwise remain unknown even to those who witness its

culmination. A key example can be found in Christo and Jeanne-ClaudesRunning Fence

project. TheRunning Fence was a monumental outdoor installation project

(environmental artwork) culminating in September of 1976 with a white nylon fence

measuring eighteen feet high and stretching twenty-four and a half miles across Marin

and Sonoma counties in northern California and into the Pacific Ocean. Although the

fence was on view for only two weeks, the artwork was realized over a planning period

of four years, culminating in this temporary display. For Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the

public hearings and complicated negotiations, the environmental impact studies, the

attorneys, landowners, government officials, and members of commissions, supporters

and opponents alike, were an integral part of the project (ODoherty 1). In fact, for the

artists, the process and the artwork are indistinguishable. They insist that not merely the

nylon fence, but everything contained in the great arc from the first idea to its

completionand aftermath [including all of the participants and the audience] is not part

of the artwork but the artwork itself (ODoherty 60).

Writing about the afterlife of theRunning Fence, Brian ODoherty

conceptualizes the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude in three phases, like three chapters

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in a novel: the planning, realization, and finally, a complex, extended epilogue in which

the work is retrieved and the story retold (60). In order to materialize the project in its

entirety and facilitate the retelling of the story, the creation of an archive is intrinsic to the

work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude from the beginning. Participating in a kind of

reverse archeology, they hire top artists in their field (photography, film, video, print) to

document the works, publish this documentation in a book accompanying each project,

and distribute the archive to collecting institutions (ODoherty 62). TheRunning Fence

archive (alternately termed the complete documentation exhibition), acquired by the

Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) in 2008, is composed of more then 350

individual items, including 50 original preparatory works by Christo, a sixty-eight-foot-

long scale model, more than 240 documentary photographs by Wolfgang Voltz and

Gianfranco Gorgoni, and fence materials from the original installation (Exhibitions:

Christo and Jeanne Claude). With the acquisition of the archive, SAAM produced an

exhibition entitledRemembering the Running Fence (on view April 2, 2010September

26, 2010), for which they commissioned the filmmaker Wolfram Hissen to revisit the

communities that experienced theRunning Fence and record the traces of the work that

survive in viewers memories (ODoherty 65). Rather than a recreation of a temporary

work, which risks feeling false and archeological, the exhibition of the archive, as a re-

telling of the story, is arguably a continuation of the work itself. TheRunning Fence is

about process and memory as much as it is the ephemeral realization of the fence; it is

story of resistance overcomeof the freedom to make the work (ODoherty 61). The

complete documentation archive and its exhibition materializes and preserves the process

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and memories that are integral to the work, allowing it to be understood in its entirety and

communicated to future generations.

Although the intersection of art and archive is particularly present in

ephemeral artworks, it is by no means limited to them. Even the more typical archival

holdings of letters and notes, in the context of artists archives, often complicate this

boundary. Letters may be illustrated, or may even be conceptual artworks themselves. For

example, in a chapter entitled The List as Art, Liza Kirwin, Curator of Manuscripts at

the Archives of American Art, describes a numbered list from 1971 by performance and

conceptual artist Vito Acconci, which was intended as a conceptual work of art (and

perhaps as a potential postmortem performance) (Kirwin 22). Acconci had a fear of

flying, and prior to taking a trip, he sent a numbered list of open-ended instructions for

what to do with his apartment and belongings should he die in transit to art collectors and

others in the art world. The list remains as material evidence of the art event (Kirwin

22).

The objects and ephemera collected by an artist can also challenge the definitions

of art and archive. The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh is home to one such

difficult collection. In addition to thousands of Warhols artworks, the museum houses

Warhols archives, which include hundreds of his time capsulescardboard boxes that

the artist periodically filled with the bric-a-brac of daily life, sealed, dated, and sent to

storage. The time capsule system was initially suggested by Warhols studio manager in

the early 1970s, when the artist was preparing to move the contents of his studio to a new,

larger space (Falconer 172). Warhol took to the system enthusiastically. Initially he

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carefully creating themed capsules (such as one dedicated to his mother), but he

eventually began to keep a box by his desk into which he dropped all variety of things as

they passed thorough his hands. He continued this practice from 1974 until his death in

1987, creating a total of 612 capsules (Falconer 172). Amidstreceipts, invoices, letters,

photographs, magazines, artwork, and various ephemera, some of the more unusual items

found in the capsules include a mummified human foot (believed to be tomb-robbed from

Egypt), slices of Carolin Kennedys birthday cake, and a weevil-ridden ball of pizza

dough (Falconer 172).

The Warhol Museum has enthusiastically embraced the keeping and exhibiting of

this unusual material. The contents of one of the inventoried time capsules is always

displayed in the museum (Nesbett 31), and their website boasts, by exhibiting this

archival material with Warhols artwork, the Warhol Museum is able to provide a unique

and rich museum experience! (Warhol: Exhibitions). The Hayward gallery in London

also displayed time capsule 92, chosen for its breadth of contents, in an exhibition

surveying Warhols career in October of 2008 (Falconer 172). The time capsules lend

themselves especially well to inclusion in exhibitions of Warhols artwork due to the

congruence of the collection with the artists working methods and philosophy, which

position them in somewhat of a grey area between art and archive. Critic and

journalist Morgan Falconer alluded to this idea when he described the exhibition of

capsule 92 at the Hayward as, welcome because its better than any curators trawl

through the milieu of the artistits the artists own trawl, carried out by the one who

believed that trawling might be all that art has left to do in the face of the awesome

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swelling of culture (172). In fact, an entry in Warhols diary written after attending a

Judy Garland auction reveals that he recognized the slippage between archive and art

inherent in his time capsules. He mused, Some day Ill sell them for $4,000 or $5,000. I

used to think $100, but now thats my new price (Falconer 172). Reportedly, Warhol

discussed selling and exhibiting the time capsules with his dealer Leo Castelli, believing

they should each be sold, contents unseen, for the same price. For this reason,although

Warhol did not initially conceive of the time capsules in this way, the museum believes

that he eventually did consider them to be an artwork (Nesbett 31).

The objects and ephemera of an artists daily life and work may challenge

institutional boundaries physically as well as conceptually. For example, in addition to

more traditional two-dimensional archival material, the complete estate archive of

pioneering television and video artist Nam June Paik, acquired by the Smithsonian

American Art Museum in 2009, includes such varied physical formats as, models and

plans for video installations; early model televisions, video projectors, radios, record

players and cameras; musical instruments, vintage photographs, posters, catalogs and

works in progress; toys, games, folk sculptures and other studio effects (Nam June Paik

Archive). The televisions alone number in the hundreds and require the space of several

large warehouse shelves. Clearly, it would be quite challenging for most archival

institutions to physically house these materials, even if they were interested in acquiring

the many objects in this collection. Archival repositories have the storage space and staff

experience commensurate with collections that are customarily comprised primarily of

papers or other mostly flat materials in boxes. Large estate collections such as that of

Nam June Paik, therefore, may be one of the primary contexts in which significant

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quantities of challenging archival materials are entering museum collections. If not

collected by an art museum with adequate storage facilities, such a collection would

almost certainly need to be divided institutionally, with the papers going to an archives

and the objects and artwork going to a museum.

Institutional Contexts of Artists Archives

Partially due to the conceptual overlap of art and archive detailed above, and

partially due to the fact that an artists estate will contain a range of materials, including

both artwork and archival materials (that sometimes take challenging physical

formats), artists archives are potentially of interest to both archives and art museums, and

are collected by both types of institutions. As Antje B. Lemke has observed, there is a

considerable overlap between the contents and functions of archives and museums. As

archives contain original artifacts which they have received as a persons or institutions

legacy, museums own and exhibit archival photographs and other pictorial

documents (7). Indeed, as artists are purposefully blurring the line between art and

archive, and as interest in material culture studies continues to grow, the collecting

domains of museums and archives are increasingly overlapping, and traditional

institutional definitions and practices are undoubtedly expanding.Despite these

similarities, however, mixed art/archive collections or archival collections with

significant quantities of objects and ephemera are nevertheless challenging for art

museums and archives, whose staffing, professional practices, training, and facilities have

historically evolved to serve different institutional missions, and, likewise, have

developed different types of collections and collection management procedures.

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Broadly defined as cultural heritage institutions, archives and museums share a

common responsibility to collect, preserve, and make accessible unique items of enduring

cultural and historical value. Whereas archives have traditionally defined themselves in

relation to a mission ofcollection, preservation, and provision of access to records or

documents for the purpose of research,3museums have traditionally defined

themselves in relation to a mission of collection, preservation, display, and interpretation

of art or artifacts, and both institutions have established classification and description

practices accordingly. Items which are accessioned into art museum collections usually

must also be considered art, with those items which do not meet this definition going to

archives, historical societies, or history museums. As part of this collecting policy, art

museums usually manage smaller numbers of items than archives. Their record-keeping,

classification, and description practices are geared toward the goals of interpretation and

exhibition, as well as the conservation, insurance, and provenance of unique and valuable

objects. Archives generally collect a larger volume of materials in number, but a smaller

volume in terms of storage requirements, since the majority of materials collected by

archives are papers. Archival description has evolved to manage these large numbers of

materials, and is geared toward resource discovery and access rather than interpretation

and exhibition.

Some of the most significant differences between the practices of archivists and

museum professionals are found in the areas of collections processing, documentation,

and descriptive cataloging. Museums typically assign a unique identifying number

(accession number) and create an item-level catalog record for each object accessioned

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into the permanent collection. Single items and parts of items are meticulously recorded;

for example, a teapot with a lid would be accessioned as two distinct parts of the same

object (i.e. assigned the numbers 1983.75.3a (teapot) and 1973.75.3b (lid)), and both

components would measured and described (Buck and Gilmore 43-44). Although the

level of detail will vary based on the policies and workflow of individual institutions, the

information recorded about individual items will include descriptive information, such as

artist, title, date, material(s)/medium, measurements, and inscriptions; interpretive

information, such as classification, description, and subject cataloging; provenance

information; reference to related items; and bibliographic references. Object records also

contain information about an items condition, conservation, exhibition, and loan

histories; its current location; legal, appraisal, and insurance documentation; and

sometimes photographic images of the item for reference and/or reproduction. Museums

must also create and maintain separate records for the temporary management of

incoming and outgoing loans and exhibitions, which are later archived and made

accessible for future research (Buck and Gilmore 1-15).

Archives, by contrast, utilize a range of description levels, as determined by the

content of individual collections and the availability of staff resources. Materials may be

organized and described in an archival finding aid at the level of thefonds or group,4 sub-

group, series,5 sub-series, file/folder,6 or item, with item-level description the exception

rather than the norm (Millar146-48). In addition to describing the structure of archives,

archival finding aids also typically provide biographical or historical context for the

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person or organization in question, and well as notes on the content and scope of the

collection.

Museums and archives also differ regarding their implementation of shared

cataloging standards. Whereas archives are engaged in the creation of standardized,

sharable records through the use of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and Machine-

Readable Cataloging (MARC), and by following content standards such as Describing

Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), museum records are typically more local and

idiosyncratic and have not traditionally adhered to shared standards. Although various

data structure, content, and value standards have been created for cultural heritage

information in an effort to standardize information representation across museums (e.g.

the Visual Resources Associations Cataloging Cultural Objects content standard (CCO)

and the Getty Research Institutes Art and Architecture Thesaurus, among others), it

remains very difficult for museum professionals to agree on a given standard and even to

use that standard consistently in their own institutions (Marty 32). As a result, most

museums are still using their own unique systems with their own unique record

structures, and even museums that use common standards and controlled vocabularies

can face problems sharing their information resources (Marty 33).

Despite these differences in institutional missions, policies, and practices, as well

as, perhaps, the general format and content of collections, museums and archives have

much in common. Whether or not they are solicited, artworks and artifacts do find their

way into archives, and archival materials, likewise, find their way into art museums, at

which point a common reaction of archivists or museum professionals seems to be to

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scratch their heads and wonder just what it is they should do with them. The unique and

varied materials found in collections of artists archives just do not seem to fit neatly

within existing institutional boxes, both literally and figuratively. Anthony Reed

articulates this problem in his discussion of objects in museum archives:

The challenge [of these nonstandard historical items] comes in the

intersection of professions. Traditional registrars and curators in the

museum worldwhile knowledgeable of museum artifactsmay not

have the training or professional network to know how to best treat an

archival collection in their care. In the archival world, the odd and

occasional object in a paper-based collection may be a simple stumbling

block in the archival process to professionals trained in processing,

arrangement, and description. A complex collection rife with objects mightflummox an archivist altogether (169).

In what follows, the museum and archival institutional contexts will be considered

individually in relation to the challenges that may be encountered when managinga

collection of artists archives.

Archival Materials in Art Museums

Although art museums may acquire archival materials through any number of

different circumstances, the most common situations in which they are likely to acquire

significant archival collections may be through active collecting of the documentation of

ephemeral artworks (as with theRunning Fence archive), or, perhaps more commonly, as

part of larger gifts, such as artists complete estates. As demonstrated by the Nam June

Paik estate archive discussed previously, artists estates can include a range of physical

formats which would be difficult, if not impossible, for many archival institutions to

store, thus potentially making an art museum the de facto repository for at least a portion

of the materials.

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For art museums, which are accustomed to storing and handling both objects and

works on paper, archival materials should not, in theory, present physical storage and

handling challenges. Rather, one of the most significant challenges encountered with

archival materials in museums appears to be the question of the art/archive definition.

Art museums with their own collecting archives may decide to split up mixed collections,

sending the archival material to the museums archives and keeping the artwork in the

museums curatorial collection. However, deciding what constitutes art vs. archive

can be a serious stumbling block in this process. Reed has described this classification

difficulty as follows:

Occasionally, it may be that the line between archival material and curated

art object blurs. Sketchbooks may be utilized in a retrospective exhibition

showing an artists earliest work right up through current creative work.

Certainly, marginalia in books, informal doodles, or miniature models of

works never carried out may all be found in archival collections, and may

all be treated as individually cataloged, curated objects. Deciding whether

these items are treated as supplemental items within an archival collection

or as stand-alone art objects is a complex process incorporating

provenance, context, and collections storage. (171)

According to Reed, the question of whether to remove an object from the museum

archives and accession it into the curatorial collection will depend on the internal

structure of the institution and the relationship between the curatorial and archival

departments. It could be that the organization has a policy that all objects go to museum

collections (Reed 175). If not, the decision may depend on the scope of the collection (i.e.

is it the occasional object or the rule?) (Reed 169), and will hopefully be the result of an

agreement between the archivist and curator about where the item most appropriately

belongs (Reed 175-76). Ideally, the lines between the museum, archives, and library are

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permeable, and the relationships collegial, resulting in optimal care of, and robust access

to collections. Unfortunately, however, institutional politics sometimes get in the way of

this ideal (Reed 176).

Another problem confronting museums attempting to manage archival collections

in the absence of a museum archives is that the overwhelming number of materials often

found in these collections is at odds with museums preference for item-level cataloging.

In Intellectual Control of EphemeraA Museums Perspective, Deborah A. Smith

illuminates this problem via a discussion of the efforts of the Strong Museum in

Rochester, New York, a history museum charged with interpreting life in America from

1820 to the present, to organize, classify, and describe its large collection of ephemera

(64). With approximately 75,000 items in its paper collection, the majority remain

uncatalogued. Even during a period of relative special attention under the direction of the

collections first and only curator, and with the help of staff, interns, and volunteers, the

museum was only able to catalog between five and ten percent of the paper ephemera

between 1984 and 1994 (Smith 64). Cataloging a collection this large using the museums

traditional methods (which include subject cataloging in order to support their

interpretive mission) is clearly prohibitively time-consuming (Smith 67). As Smith

explains:

Trained to view the artifact as an individual icon of history or art, curators

may be ill-prepared to deal with material culture en masse. While it is

laudable and certainly possible to regard two-and three-dimensional

objects as equals for all of a museums interpretive purposes, striving to

maintain the same degree of detail in cataloging can easily become self-

defeating. Uncataloged collections only reduce access and increase

security risks, suggesting that museum curators of ephemera would benefit

their collections by adopting archivists methods. But it is debatable

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whether the museums obsession with the individual artifact could ever co-

exist with the concept of a discrete series of units. (69)

Successful management of archives in museum collections, therefore, may require

museum professionals to re-think and modify museum practice to more realistically

balance the needs of a given collection with practical considerations.

Art and Artifacts in Archives

Artworks perhaps most often enter archival institutions as part of a larger archival

acquisition. Laura Millar remarks that artists' papers are a prime example [of this

phenomenon], as so often the documentary record is intermingled with artistic items. An

artist's sketches, drafts, and artworks may very well be considered records, and

documents such as correspondence and diaries may have artistic value (93). In a paper

addressing the question of whether libraries, archives, and research institutes should

collect art, D. Vanessa Kam notes some potential advantages to art objects in this

institutional context, explaining that:

libraries and archives are . . . effective repositories for art objects

especially if the objects are part of a larger collection with qualities that

invite scholarly study and research. Special Collections librarians and

archivists have historically recognized the research value of collecting a

'critical mass' of documentation. This idea parallels the principles behind

preserving the integrity of archives, or keeping all aspects of an archive

(no matter how disparate the individual elements might be) together. (13)

Kam notes that patrons may be motivated to donate or sell collections containing art

objects to libraries and archives as opposed to museums if they want their collections to

be used to facilitate the work of researchers, citing Robert Rainwater at the New York

Public Library (NYPL), who observes that patrons believe that libraries will make

materials accessible with cataloging, preserving, and lending practices (13). Patrons may

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find institutions like the NYPL, where, according to Rainwater, the object as

documentary record is particularly emphasized, to be especially attractive repositories

for these collections (Kam 13). Finally, libraries and archives may be appropriate

repositories for artcollections that may not readily be accepted by mainstream museums

and, therefore, riskbecoming inaccessible when an appropriate institution cannot be

identified (Kam 13).

However, deciding whether to acquire art as part of an archival collection

depends on the mandate of the institution and the merits of the acquisition as well as a

consideration of the preservation requirements of works (Millar 93-94). As Kam

suggests, many archivists and librarians may not have the knowledge, training, and staff

required to properly manage art in their collections. They may lack understanding of the

relative value of art objects in their collections, the materials and techniques used to

create them, their preservation requirements, and the policies and procedures necessary

for their long-term care. Furthermore, archives and libraries may lack the materials and

facilities, as well as the temperature and humidity control, necessary to properly house

and store works of art in their collections (Kam 10).

Although there appears to be little, if any, additional research on the problem of

art in archives, the scant available literature on three-dimensional objects (alternately

termed artifacts)7in archives informs this discussion, given that artists archives mayinclude a variety of objects that prove challenging to archival institutions (e.g. models;

artifacts of performance, installation, or ephemeral artwork; personal belongings and

collections; source material for three-dimensional works; or even the three-dimensional

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works themselves). As Dean H. Jeffrey has shown in his study of three-dimensional

objects in university archives, the collection of objects poses significant challenges for

archivists in terms of storage, cataloging, preservation, and use. As a result, archivists

usually do not actively seek objects and often must turn down object donations (Jeffrey

43-44).Jill Robin Severn, while advocating the collection of artifacts by archives, also

acknowledges that certainly, artifacts can be troublesome. They are often difficult to

preserve. Many need special enclosures and nonstandard storage shelving, and they

usually take up significant storage space. Often, they are fragile, or they may have

significant monetary value, which makes them security risks (223). Objects also pose

significant challenges in terms of cataloging. Citing Lynn Howarths description of the

problems of cataloging AV materials, Robert Freeborn believes that object cataloging also

suffers from the three Ds,: (1) [Objects are] different, from standard print

materials; (2) Because of this difference, theyre difficult to catalog; and (3) They

divert cataloging time and resources. These problems lead departments to either put

them aside in hopes that someone else will deal with them, or give them minimum-level

processing in order to get them on the shelves and off their desks (Freeborn). Finally,

Jan Brazier has expressed a similar sentiment among archivists, noting that objects are

usually assigned to the too-hard or not-enough-time basketalong with ephemera.

Due to these challenges, it is not uncommon for objects to get split up from the

rest of the collection and sent to a different administrative unit or institution that is better

equipped to handle them, such as a museum collection (Byrne A12). Storage and

conservation requirements are often a major factor in this decision. As Brazier explains,

the separation of objects from archives is often desirable for better storage and use. It is

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not that objects per se do not belong in archives but that generally, for reasons of space,

storage requirements, use, and access, objects are felt to best belong in museums.

Notably, although Kam and Rainwater feel that libraries and archives offer an advantage

in providing access to artworks in collections (Kam 13), here Brazier expresses the

opposite opinion, listing use and access among the reasons that objects are better

served by museums.

It appears that professional opinion about the place of artworks and artifacts in

archives is divided, with certain repositories valuing these materials as part of the

documentary record more than others. However, at present, the available literature

suggests that for reasons cited above, these materials are quite problematic for archivists,

risking inadequate cataloging, preservation, access, and use. Severn criticizes the fact that

artifacts too often exist at both the physical and conceptual margins of the archives,

claiming that, often archivists discount, disdain, and worst of all, ignore these

materials (222). According to Severn, artifacts may not be processed with the collections

in which they originated, rather, appearing in a series of separated materials along with

other problematic formats, such as audiovisual materials or sometimes even photographs,

and they may not appear in finding aids at all (222-23). Finally, arguing that they are

seemingly not worth the trouble of proper preservation, storage, and cataloging, Severn

claims that artifacts are often only accepted to placate a donor or for their potential

exhibition value (223).

With limited staff and financial resources, many archivists argue that they

must concentrate energy on the realrecords of the archives, the written

(and spoken) records. Implicit in their thinking is an assumption that

records belong in archives, while artifacts belong in museumsand by

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corollary, that artifacts lack qualities that would imbue them with

sufficient recordness. (Severn 223)

This attitude is made explicit by Anne Cooke, who refers to objects in her school

archives as non-archival material of historical interest, and in an opening anecdote,

suggests that a school archivist asked to include objects such as school uniforms, prizes,

trophies, and rare books in her collection might appeal to her funding body in protest,

arguing, these are not archives. . . . They belong in a museum (57). Given that such

protests are routinely ignored due to the public relations benefits of an object collection,

Cooke has reluctantly embraced the keeping of objects, but conceives of the undertaking

as akin to running a museum alongside the archives, and believes the primary value of

her museum material to be in staging small exhibitions for school reunions (58). Many

of the university archivists interviewed by Jeffrey similarly saw little research value in

objects and used them primarily for display purposes (Jeffrey 44). Perhaps not only the

storage, preservation, and cataloging difficulties posed by artifacts and artworks, but also

a conceptual bias by archivists against non-textual documents may underlie the general

lack of support identified by these authors for research with artifacts in archives.

In fact, the scant literature on objects, artifacts, or realia in archives would

suggest that the very definition of object, and therefore, part of the essential difficulty it

poses for archivists, rests more on the items relationship to information, or the nature of

its perceived value, than on its physical dimensions. In a consideration of non-book

media in library collections, Esther Green Bierbaum suggests this distinction when she

defines realia (here synonymous with objects) as not a representation of the world,

but part of the world itself (301). This line of reasoning posits that most of the items in

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archives are collected for their informational, or textual, valuethat is, their ability

to act as containers for informationwhereas the the items in museums are collected for

their intrinsic or artifactual valuethat is, they are valued in and of themselves

(perhaps for their status as art or their association with a famous person or historical

event).8An intellectual distinction is also reflected in the language used in the literature,

as objects or artifacts are often contrasted with documents or records. This begs

the question, what is a document?, and, can objects be documents?

Art and Artifacts as Documents

An archivists decision whether to accept artwork or artifacts as part of a

collection of artists papers, as well as how to process these items within the collection,

may depend partially on the value that the archivist ascribes to them and his or her

assumptions about how they will be used. Do art and artifacts, in the words of Severn,

have sufficient recordness to justify the archivists time and resources? Or, as Cooke

suggests, do they belong in a museum, having merely exhibition value? Given that

archives define their mission in relation to the collection of records or documents, the

conceptual question of whether these items belong in archives, in turn, rests on whether

these materials can be fully considered documents.

Although the definition of document provided by Millar: information or data

fixed in some medium, such as paper, film or digital bits and bytes (263), does not

strictly limit the notion to a particular format, it does imply a separation of message and

medium that is generally not true of most artifacts. Furthermore, one may argue that the

privileged objects of the archival profession have traditionally been paper

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records (Rylance 104), and the term document is normally used to denote texts or,

more exactly, text-bearing objects (Buckland, Information as Thing 353). The

question what is a document? was perhaps most famously addressed by Michael

Buckland in his 1997 essay of the same title (What Is a Document?). Surveying the

history of ideas about the scope of documentation and the nature of a document,

Buckland recountsthe pioneering work done by European documentalists in the first half

of the twentieth century in expanding ideas about what constitutes a document beyond

the textual record to any potentially informative object. For example, in his Trait de

documentation of 1934, Paul Otlet extended the definition of document to include

three-dimensional objects, writing that graphic and written records are representations of

ideas or of objects, but the objects themselves can be regarded as documents if you are

informed by observation of them (qtd. in Buckland, What Is a Document? 805).

Otlets definition was not limited to objects intended as communication, and could now

include natural objects, artifacts, objects bearing traces of human activity (such as

archaeological finds), explanatory models, educational games, and works of art (qtd. in

Buckland, What Is a Document? 805). As Buckland observes, Otlets view of objects as

documents resembles the present notion of material culture in museology and cultural

anthropology (What Is a Document? 807).

In 1951, French librarian and documentalist Susan Briet published a manifesto on

the nature of documentation entitled, Quest-ce que la documentation? in which she

argues that a document is evidence in support of a fact, further defining a document as,

any physical or symbolic sign, preserved or recorded, intended to represent, to

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reconstruct, or to demonstrate a physical or conceptual phenomenon. (qtd. in Buckland,

What Is a Document? 806). In Briets view, an essential quality of a document was its

ability to function as evidence, regardless of physical form. By this logic, Briet goes so

far as to suggest that an antelope could be considered a document. According to Briet, the

wild antelope is not by itself a document, but rather, the antelope is made into a document

(a piece of physical evidence) if that antelope is captured, taken to a zoo, and made an

object of study (Buckland,What Is a Document? 806).

This logic posits a relative rather than fixed definition of document, suggesting

that an object becomes a document when it is treated as such.Ron Day calls attention to

Briets use of the word indice, suggesting that, it is its indexicalitythe quality of

having been placed in an organized, meaningful relationship with other evidencethat

gives an object its documentary status (qtd. in Buckland, What Is a Document? 806).

It would appear, then, that the answer to the question, what is a document? might be in

the eye of the beholder. Looking to semiotics, Buckland considers the ability of objects to

function as signs, noting that contemporary theory would place greater emphasis on the

social construction of meaning, on the viewers perception of the significance and

evidential character of documents(What Is a Document? 807), and reminding us that

the property of being a sign is not a natural property . . . but a property that is given to

objects, be they natural or artificial, through the kind of use that is made of

them (Sebeok, qtd. in Buckland, What Is a Document? 807).

From this discussion we can conclude that context, including how an item gains

meaning through its relationship to a larger collection or acts as evidence of an

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intellectual construct, seems important to the understanding of art and artifacts as

documents. This explains why the odd piece of school memorabilia in Cookes archives

may be less documentary to her than would, perhaps, a collection of school

memorabilia to someone studying how the design of trophies or depiction of the school

mascot has changed over time. Similarly, a group of objects collected by an artist over the

course of his or her lifetime may be more informative, and therefore more

documentary, than a single object arriving at an archives without a known context

relative to the collection as a whole. Severn speaks to this idea when she argues:

Some archivists wrongly assume that artifacts are not fully records

because they were collectedrather than made, as they would be if written,

spoken, or typed. But the individual who amasses a collection of items

creates meaningfor an artifact by imbuing it with context and juxtaposing

it with other artifacts and records that form the framework of his or her

material life. (224)

This logic further suggests that even a group of artworks, for example, in a complete

artistic estate collection, can function simultaneously as art and archive and has value

in both contexts. Finally, the ideas of Otlet and Briet, extend the notion of document,

and by extension archive, to museum object collections when the materials are viewed

in relation to each other for the purpose of research and study, merely further

complicating definitions of art and archive and questioning any distinction on these

grounds as the basis of institutional collections.

Toward a More Integrated Cultural Record

Several authors have emphasized the complementary function and equivalent

value of textual and material records, urging archivists and museum professionals toward

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greater collaboration and a more integrated cultural record (Darms, Meraz, Severn).

Severn expresses this idea quite eloquently, writing:

Individuals and organizations express themselves not just through the

written and spoken word, but also through representations from theirmaterial world. The things people throw away, the things they choose to

keep, the gifts they give, the things they treasureall of this material

residue documents lives in ways that support, complement, extend, and

expand the written documentary record. (221)

Similarly, Lisa Darms argues, like other documents, objects are inscribed and can be

read within the context of their creation (143). Referring to a particular pencil

sharpener in The Magic Box, a set of objects collected by artist David Wojnarowicz, (now

part of the Downtown Collection at the Fales Library and Special Collections), Darms

writes, it is worthy of the archives because Wojnarowicz [whom she considers the

creator] removed it from the endless stream of objects-in-the-world and re-inscribed it

within the realm of his own private language (152).

Furthermore, as Severn has suggested, written and spoken records are not always

so trustworthy or complete (222). Not all people and events leave written records, and

less concrete, but no less important aspects of an individual, such as personal tastes,

habits, interests, and sense of self are often so taken for granted, so entwined with daily

life, that they are never recorded (Severn 222). People do not create artifacts and texts in

isolation from each other, and together these products of human activity have much to tell

archivists and their researchers (Severn 222).

In her 1997 article entitled, Cultural Evidence: On the Common Ground

Between Archivists and Museologists, Gloria Meraz criticizes the physical and

intellectual isolation of archives and artifacts from one another in archival repositories

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and museums, arguing that these distinct institutions need to consolidate their efforts and

provide the public with a coherent means for accessing the increasingly fragmented and

diverse cultural evidence produced today (1).She argues that making cultural evidence

accessible does not only mean making the materials available, but also implies presenting

them in a holistic context that allows users to connect information from all types of

evidence (Meraz 1). Especially given that the holistic presentation of cultural materials

on the Internet has reshaped patrons experiences with these materials, and it has raised

their expectations for access to all cultural materials (Severn 229), archives and

museums arguably must provide more compatible services if they are to stay relevant to

contemporary audiences (Meraz 14).

While Meraz proposes greater collaboration between archives and museums in the

form of exhibits, information about holdings, and educational programs for staff and

researchers/visitors (20), Severn believes that mere collaboration will not accomplish

the type of integration desired by Meraz. Rather, she proposes that archivists must alter

their practice from within, arguing that as long as archivists expect to learn about

artifacts from curators and curators expect to learn about records from archivists, neither

profession will recognize each others functions as their own (224). She urges archivists

to look to the methods of material culture studies in order to gain knowledge about the

various (and multiple) ways in which artifacts can be read, so that they are better

equipped to make decisions about their appraisal, arrangement, description, and access

that will ultimately educate users about the research potential of objects and reveal their

hidden collections of material culture to a broader array of scholars (224). Unfortunately,

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Severn does not provide an equivalent set of recommendations for museums with

archival holdings, but one can assume that museums could also benefit considerably from

the integration of some archival methods and principles into their collection management

practices.

As valuable cultural documents, artists archiveshold great potential for research

and present significant opportunities for museums and archives to increase collaboration

and provide more holistic access to cultural evidence. Although the available literature

would suggest that the variety of physical formats and content found in these collections

pose significant challenges to their effective management within both archives and

museums, there appears to be no literature that directly addresses this problem or gives a

clear indication of current practices and potential solutions. Therefore, a study was

devised in order to illuminate professional issues and practices surrounding the collection

and management of artists archives across institutional contexts.

METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this research study was to investigate professional practices by

archivists and museum professionals regarding collections of artists archives. Given that

these collections are often quite varied in content and physical format, comprised of text-

based paper records, object- or image-based records, and artwork, which, taken together,

defy the traditional institutional boundaries of both art museums and archives, this study

sought to identify how some archivists and art museum professionals are currently

addressing the challenges presented by these complex collections.

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It was assumed that archivists are challenged by artwork or artifacts in their

collections, and likewise, that art museum professionals are challenged by archival, or

non-art materials in their collections, and that professionals in both institutions most

likely prefer to avoid these challenging materials. However, it was also assumed that

most institutions that collect artists archives or estates either have some of this

challenging material in their collections, or have been confronted with the opportunity

to acquire mixed art/archive collections, and have had to make decisions about what to do

with materials that do not fit neatly into institutional categories. It is also acknowledged

that some museums or archives may actively seek these materials under certain

circumstances, and may have a more holistic collecting attitude than the scant available

literature would lead one to believe.

In order to shed light on current institutional practices relevant to the collection

and management of artists archives, interviews were conducted with museum and

archives professionals from three institutions. Participants included: Lauren Turner,

curatorial assistant at the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at

Chapel Hill;Laura Micham, director, and Kelly Wooten, research services and collection

development librarian, at the Sallie Bingham Center for Womens History and Culture at

Duke Universitys Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library; and Andra Darlington,

head of special collections cataloging and metadata in the Research Library at the Getty

Research Institute.

Potential participants were identified based on proximity to the author (so that

interviews could be conducted in person whenever possible), and/or affiliation with an

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institution known to own materials that would inform the goals of this study. Potential

participants were sent an email describing the purpose of the study, inquiring about

relevant collections, and requesting participation in an interview, if appropriate.

Interviews were conducted with all professionals who responded positively to the email

solicitation.

Interviews were semi-structured, and professionals were invited to speak freely

and conversationally about collections or experience relevant to the goals of this study.

The specific interview questions varied with each institution based on what was most

appropriate for the type of institution and collections in question. However, questions for

all interviews were guided by the following areas of inquiry: acquisitions/policy,

cataloging/description, storage, access/outreach, exhibition, and overall value of artists

archives within the institution.

Given that this issue has received little attention in the professional literature, but

is likely one that many institutions confront at least on some level, this study reveals

existing practices that can inform museum and archives professionals who may be facing

these challenges themselves, or who have an interest in broadening the scope of their

collections to include both art and archival materials.

INTERVIEW RESULTS

Interview responses are presented here individually by institution due to the small

number of participants, the uniqueness of each institutions collections and collecting

practices, and the resulting diversity of topics discussed. The responses are then analyzed

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and discussed to identify common themes, concerns, and professional practices relating

to the collection of artists archives by art museums and archival institutions.

Ackland Art Museum

Institutional Context

The Ackland Art Museum is an academic unit of the University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill and is located on the university campus. As a public institution, the

Ackland has responsibilities to broad local, state, and national

constituencies (About); however, its primary service is to the university. According to

their mission statement, the Museum acquires, preserves, exhibits, and interprets works

of art to fulfill the Universitys mission to provide teaching, research, and public service

to the people of North Carolina (Mission). Opened in 1958,the museums collection

was primarily built of western art spanning the centuries from antiquity to the

present (History). However, the museum has since acquired a sizable collection of

Asian art. Today, its permanent collection consists of more than 16,000 works of art, a

significant portion of which are works on paper (i.e., drawings, prints, and photographs)

(About). In addition to caring for its permanent collection, the Ackland regularly

organizes special exhibitions and provides educational and public programming for

school groups and members of the community. Works of art not on display, as well as the

museums curatorial files, are made accessible to interested scholars, students, and

members of the public by appointment based on staff availability. Museum staff believe

that as a state institution, the Ackland has a responsibility to make its holdings available

for research and study, and they do their best to facilitate these requests (Turner).

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General Practice with Artists Archives

Lauren Turner, curatorial assistant at the Ackland Art Museum, spoke about

several collections at the Ackland that highlight the museums decision-making process

regarding artists archives and ephemera, as well as its close relationship with the

university libraries and archives.9 The Acklands position as part of the university and its

corresponding access to university resources means that it has the option to collaborate

with university libraries and archives in the disposition of archival material and ephemera

related to its collections. Regarding the museums holdings and practices with artists

archives and ephemera, Ms. Turner stated that the Ackland has generally followed a

consistent model: that of transferring ephemera to the libraries (or the reversethe

libraries transferring more art-like ephemera to us).

One informative example of this process can be found in the handling of the

Charles Henry Alston archive. According to Ms. Turner, the example set by the Alston

archive is a successful model that the museum would try to follow if it were offered any

artists archives in the future. The papers of Charles Henry Alston, a prominent African

American artist from Charlotte, NC, active in the mid 20th century, were acquired in

1998 by UNC-Chapel Hills Southern Historical Collection. Housed in the Wilson special

collections library, the Southern Historical Collection acquires archival collections

documenting the history and culture of the American South since the late eighteenth

century. The Southern Historical Collection describes its holding as unique primary

documents, such as diaries, journals, letters, correspondence, photographs, maps,

drawings, ledgers, oral histories, moving images, albums, scrapbooks, and literary

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manuscripts (About the Southern Historical Collection). Although moderately broad in

scope, these materialsare more or less typical archival formats with the possible

exception of drawings. However, given the following discussion, it is most likely safe

to assume that the Southern Historical Collection prefers not to collect artwork.

Upon sorting through the contents of the Alston collection, archivists at the

Southern Historical Collection identified some items (according to Ms. Turner,

essentially anything visual) as material in which the museum might be interested, or

which they felt would be better suited at the museum. When the museum received these

materials, curators had to decide which items to accept, based on their judgement of what

should be subject to the very specific regulations governing the care of all accessioned

objects in their collection. Although the Southern Historical Collection offered the

museum a group of fifty to sixty items, the museum ultimately accepted only about

thirty-five to forty of those items.

The museums decision about which items to accept sheds light on their view of

their collecting mission as it applies to archival collections, and, therefore, merits a brief

discussion here. Among the items from the Alston papers accessioned by the Ackland is a

study for what is believed to have been a never-completed mural. As this is truly an

artists study, the museum reportedly had no problems accepting it. They also accepted

Alstons hand-made Christmas cards. Ms. Turner stated that although these could be

considered ephemera, the museum is happy to have them in the collection because they

were made by the artist. The museum has Christmas cards made by several other artists

as well, and has even considered displaying them. Finally, the museum accepted a group

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of about twenty newspaper proofs of political cartoons drawn by Alston. Alston served as

a political cartoonist for the Office of War Information during WWII, and his work was

syndicated in African-American newspapers. Despite the fact that these were only proofs

and not the hand-drawn originals, the museum decided to accession them for their

potential educational value. According to Ms. Turner, they touch on a lot of academic

concerns. [The museum felt that they] would be worthwhile showing and might get lost

in the university archives. Among the items the museum decided not to accept were

photographs that Alston had taken of one of his sculptures for his records as well as

photographs he had taken at a natural history museum. The Ackland was not interested in

these items since they were judged to have been taken as snapshots rather than for

photography as art.

It can be generalized from this example that when selecting items for the

museums permanent collection from an artists archive, the Ackland primarily values

materials that are hand-made by the artist with artistic intention (including artists studies,

and even minor works such as Christmas cards), but they may also accept non-original art

(e.g. printed copies), given sufficient educational value. This latter decision probably

reflects their relationship with university programs. However, such decisions are made on

a case-by case, item-by-item basis. The museums collection policy does not specifically

address artists archives, estates, or non-art acquisitions. According to Ms. Turner, the

policy focuses on the areas of art that the museum is actively looking to acquire and the

reasons for doing so, rather than specifying how they will respond in the event that they

are offered certain types of materials. Honestly she said, with the libraries we dont

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get offered too much in the way of archives, or if we were, we would try to make that

worth everyones while (i.e., give it to libraries and/or archives on campus).

The Ackland also holds the artistic portions of a few artists estate archives,

which were handled in much the same way as the Alston archive, with the artists papers

going to the Southern Historical Collection and the artworks going to the museum. Most

notable among these is the William Meade Prince collection. Prince (1893-1951), a

Chapel Hill native, was a nationally recognized illustrator active during the first half of

the twentieth century. Numbering at just over 1,700 works (a significant portion of the

Acklands approximately 16,000 accessioned works total), the bulk of this large

collection has stayed together at the Ackland since it was gifted to the museum in 1962.

Even though the artists papers went to the Southern Historical Collection, Ms. Turner

feels that the museums comprehensive collection of his paintings, prints, and drawings

can be considered an archive in the sense that the many individual artworks assume

greater meaning through their relationship to the larger collection, which serves as a

valuable resource for research on the artist. In addition to these many artworks, the

museum does hold some of Princes correspondence and photographs in a box near the

curatorial files, but these have not been described or sorted.

Neither the large number of items nor the collections partially archival status

affects its management, however, as the Prince artworks are treated identically to other

items in the museum collection in terms of cataloging and storage (artworks are stored in

different locations by mediai.e., works on paper, paintings, or objects). Although the

collection does not receive much use by university courses, and therefore, is not as well

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researched as many other items in the museum collection(much of the research on the

Acklands collections originates from graduate student coursework) parts of it do

periodically get exhibited in the Study Gallery, and it is highlighted on the museums

collections webpage in the hope of advertising its presence to interested scholars.

Cooperation with University Libraries

Just as the museum occasionally receives art or art-like ephemera from the

university archives, it likewise prefers to transfer most ephemera it acquires to the Sloane

Art Library, located immediately adjacent to the museum building. The Ackland

periodically sends the librarypamphlets, exhibition announcements, and small exhibition

catalogs that it receives in the mail to be stored in the librarys artists files. The Ackland

does not have a museum library, so this close relationship with the university art library

relieves them of the burden of storing ephemeral materials in-house, while providing easy

access to these materials when they are needed. Ms. Turner claimed that if something is

especially pertinent to the museums collection, they will kept it, but generally they feel

that it makes more sense to transfer ephemeral materials to the library, where the most

people can use them:Its a lot of working with [the library] to make sure that what needs

to stay stays somewhere. The Ackland also benefits from the librarys active collecting

of artists books (another often difficult format due to its ambiguous status somewhere

between museum and library material), which the museum generally chooses not to

collect. This close relationship with the campus libraries and archives occasionally

extends to joint exhibits; however, all museum loans, even to other buildings on campus,

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must go through the full loan approval process, perhaps discouraging frequent

collaboration.

Ephemera in the Museum

Despite this effort to limit its collection of ephemera, the Ackland does have a

couple of notable exceptions that relate specifically to institutional history. Namely, the

museum holds collections of ephemera from the twoart collectors whose print collections

were foundational to the museum. The first of these is New York advertising executive

Burton Emmett, whose collection of 5,000 prints, gifted to UNC-Chapel Hill libraries in

1951, was transferred to the museum when it opened in 1958.The second is W. P.

Jacocks, a doctor who travelled the world and lived out last years of his life in the

Carolina Inn, near the UNC campus. An avid print collector, Jacocks also left a

significant endowment to the university libraries and museum, forming a substantial part

of the Acklands early print collection.

The collection of ephemera related to the Jacocks print collection is a particularly

interesting example, which illustrates how an archival collection that is the exception

rather than the rule has been valued, used, organized, and made available to researchers

by the museum. Jacocks acquired his art collection over a period of time from a print

collectors subscription service through Associated American Artists (AAA). When he

donated his collection to the museum, he also gave the museum all of the ephemera (e.g.

mailings, booklets, and advertisements) that he had received from AAA over the years,

believing that the museum would be interested in it as a source of information on the

prints as they were advertised. Although the Ackland would not typically collect this type

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of material, preferring to leave it to the university libraries and archives, their effort in

maintaining the collection of AAA ephemera has proven quite worthwhile. In addition to

what could be considered its inherent value as a piece of institutional history, Jacocks

AAA ephemera has been a valuable source of information internally, for provenance

research, as well as externally, to researchers interested in the AAA.

Internally, the collection has been instrumental in properly attributing many of the

works in both the Jacocks and Emmett collections. Both large print collections came to

the Ackland in 1958, and amidst the chaosof opening the museum,many of the prints

were mixed such that it was unclear which works came from which founding collection.

In 1987, the museum undertook a large inventory, and a concerted effort was made to

determine the correct provenance of the prints. According to Ms. Turner,the Jacocks

ephemera was incredibly useful during this inventory. If a print was found in one of the

AAA ephemera items, it was generally assumed to be from Jacocks. As a result, some of

the works that had been attributed to Burton Emmett were re-attributed to Jacocks and

vice versa.

The collection of ephemera is also currently being used for research by a group of

curators working on a catalogue raisonn of the AAA subscription service. According to

Ms. Turner, since the Acklands is one of only two major collections of prints from this

service, the researchers in the group rely heavily on the museum in order to complete the

catalogue raisonn, and they are happy to have access to this ephemera, some of which

they had not found elsewhere.They reportedly used scanned images of many of the

museums AAA ephemera items in the project grant proposal and will probably include

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some of these images in the catalog raisonn. Ms. Turner hopes that the publication of the

catalog raisonn will result in increased use of the museums collection of AAA

ephemera by researchers.

Since the Ackland does not typically collect archival material, there is no

established procedure for process